The dining room currently known as Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar will soon get a makeover and a new name

On Wednesday, Side Dish reported on big changes coming to Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar. I checked in with co-owner Mark Hearl and chef André Natera, and most, but not all, of what Side Dish reported was correct. The restaurant will close around August 7, according to Hearl, and only for about a week; the plan is to reopen the downstairs dining room as Village Kitchen around August 15. About a month later the upstairs dining room will reopen as a sushi bar called Toko V, with Daniel Chau as sushi chef. Chau was formerly head sushi chef at Steel, according to Hearl.

Downstairs, those big square booths will be pulled out of the dining room, which will be redesigned: “We’re looking at wooden floors, wooden tables — more casual,” says Natera. “Kind of what you’d get in a butcher shop, with big rolls of white butcher paper we could write the specials on daily.” It’ll be “a lot more approachable in terms of ambience,” he says.

And the food sounds like it’ll be approachable, too — and playful and fun. Yes, there’ll be a burger — Natera says he’s been working on a house-ground short rib-brisket-chuck number: “a dripping wet burger that’s delicious and juicy.” He’s been working on a fried chicken recipe, as well, to be served with bacon-and-chive waffles. And there’ll be steak frites.

André Natera's jazzed-up lobster Thermidor will be the Friday special

But it sounds like it’ll get much more creative than that, with dishes that “can resonate, but be chef-driven and playful,” as Natera puts it. For instance, he’s making a mousse inspired by dim sum shrimp dumplings that he’ll use to coat corn dogs, to be served with Sriracha and Chinese ketchup.

There’ll be salads, too, like a peach and Burrata salad, and grilled watermelon salad with pickled onions and local greens.

Nightly specials will be part of the picture, including nightly pasta specials. “We’re trying not to go the fine dining route,” says Natera, but the Friday night special will be lobster Thermidor jazzed up with corn kernels and chipotle, which the chef will serve with mac and cheese topped with lobster-stock-flavored corn bread crumbs. Wednesdays will star “My Pet Pig Rosie,” a special named for a pig owned by one of the sous-chefs — “pork belly or a pork loin, or we’ll make our own guanciale.”

Upstairs you’ll be able to get traditional nigiri sushi and rolls sitting at the sushi bar. Or sit at a table and sample some of the raw fish dishes Natera’s been working on, along with other “global-inspired Asian Food — things like a Thai green papaya salad, Korean-style barbecue ribs made with baby back ribs, or a chicken moo shoo, but my version. Malaysian laksa in addition to ramen. Kind of what David Chang has done at Momofuku, or Mission Chinese.”